


The Clocktower

by afteriwake



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What might have happened if Jonathan had actually killed himself instead of being saved by Buffy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Clocktower

**Author's Note:**

> The first section is Jonathan's POV while he's up in the clocktower, and the rest is the aftermath of his suicide on Buffy's life.

I can see her running up here, as fast as possible. If I wait a few more minutes, she'll make it in time to stop me, give me a pep talk or something. Who cares.

She doesn't.

Even though I know the gun's loaded, I check it again, quickly, just so I know it's not empty. But that's how I feel...empty. Lost. Terrified. And tired. I feel really tired.

I'm so tired of the crap. Yeah, I'm a nerd...so what? I'm supposed to grow up to be famous like Bill Gates or something, according to conventional wisdom.

Bullshit. I'm going to be another loser, just like all the other nerds I know. Like Andrew and Warren...if I don't pull this trigger, I'll be just like them, and I don't want that.

I thought I was going to be something! I thought high school would be the end of the crap I got put through by Larry and the other jocks, or Cordelia and Harmony and those other airheads.

I wonder if they'll say anything when they read the note. If they'll cry for the cameras, say "I don't know why he did this," get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight at my expense.

At least I'm not taking anyone out with me. Good old Jonathan... I should shoot the place up. But she'd stop me, and I'd never get to die.

Well, it's time to go. Jonathan, you can do this. Just put the gun in...you know. You know what to do.

It's not like anyone's going to miss you.

\---

Buffy tried so hard to stop the vomit coming up her throat. Her white outfit was soaked in blood and who knew what else. She didn't want to think about the what else.

She'd thought Jonathan was going to kill the kids at school. She thought he was the bad guy and that...he was...

She wanted to look away but she couldn't. She'd heard the shot before she was three quarters of the way there. In the back of her mind, a nasty little voice reminded her that at least this time they couldn't pin it on her.

She shook her head, clamping her mouth shut. Oh, God, this was too much. Jonathan...his head...he shouldn't have died, not like that. 

And that's when the tears started. If she'd only been faster, maybe she could have saved him. Told him that others felt the same way he did, even the popular assholes who probably helped cause this.

She heard the sirens and felt...intense rage, she supposed in what part of her brain was working properly. She wanted to strangle Cordelia for some odd reason, use Larry as a punching bag, give Harmony a beating she wouldn't forget for the rest of her insignificant little life.

But it wouldn't help. No matter what, Jonathan...he'd still be dead.

She huddled into a corner and started to cry, even when the firemen and paramedics came into the clocktower, even as someone picked her up and took her to an ambulance, even as cameramen shoved microphones in her faces as Giles tried to get her away, muttering that the students were going to be all right thanks to Xander.

Buffy shook her head. No, she muttered, the students weren't going to be all right. Nothing was going to be all right.

If she couldn't protect the guys like Jonathan, she thought to herself, then why the hell was she the Slayer?

\---

She didn't go to the funeral. Reporters kept calling so often that Joyce changed the phone number.

She'd had a funny quip to say the next time she saw her mom, about her and Giles and behavior induced by magicked chocolate, but that disappeared along with whatever smartass remarks she had inside her that day in the clocktower.

Snyder tried to throw her out, so she threw him through a brick wall and told him if he ever did anything like that to her, she'd kill him. Faith tried to taunt and goad the Slayer into a fight, but Buffy just knocked her out, cold. Cordelia said one word to her and Buffy slapped her.

Not even Angel could stop her.

All Buffy cared about was stopping the Mayor and getting out of Sunnydale. She wouldn't stay. Let the people of Sunnydale deal with their own damn problems. She'd go back to Los Angeles, or go with Willow to Harvard or Princeton, drag Xander and Oz with them. Take her mom with her, too.

Just leave.

\---

It wasn't until five years later that Buffy was able to go back. After the incident with the Mayor and Buffy's firm decision to tell the Watcher's Council to fuck off and find a new Slayer, after Faith's death and a seemingly endless string of Slayers fighting and dying in Sunnyhell, Buffy came back.

Spike had found her a few years before. She was in New York, just gotten out of college a year ago and living a comfortable life with Willow and Xander. They really would be lifelong friends, she'd realized long ago.

Spike told her Angel had closed up the Hellmouth. Lost his life in the process, but he'd managed to do what no one else had done. The whole town fell in on itself and now there a huge gaping hole.

But she still couldn't bring herself back there, not even to say good-bye to the man she loved.

When Jonathan had died, something in Buffy had left, had changed or disappeared. Whatever the case, it wasn't there anymore. Or maybe it was slowly coming back. She didn't know...these days, she tended not to overanalyze things.

Spike, he was good for her, for some reason. He was there for her. It never went more than friendship; no, she had Xander for that. But over two years, Spike got the truth of what happened that day at the clocktower out of her, and figured out why she'd changed, and forced her to go to the gaping hole that had been Sunnydale to say good-bye to the demons in her past.

It took a few days. She couldn't bring herself to get into the car and drive. Finally, she told Xander to just take when she was asleep and put her in the car, then wake her up when they were there. Then she wouldn't have a choice.

He's a good guy, she thought as she sat on the hood of the car, a blanket pulled around her and Xander, the sun rising to the east of them and the ocean glittering to the west. She saw the gaping hole and cringed. She should have died, not Angel.

Then it hit her, the selfishness, the pain she'd caused everyone else because of the pain she felt for failing one person.

"I wasn't a good Slayer, was I?" she asked quietly.

Xander thought for a moment. "Before...yeah, you were. But after...no, probably not."

Buffy nodded, then rested her head on his shoulder. She picked up the roses Xander had bought at some point in the last day or so, throwing them into the pit one at a time. "God, I was so selfish."

"You were in pain."

"Not an excuse." She held onto the last rose. "I feel like a failure."

"You're not, Buffy. Not by a long shot."

She got off the hood and walked to the edge, kneeling down and writing something in the dust. Xander stood over and watched.

_"Jonathan Levinson  
He's the one I wish I'd saved.  
I'm sorry I didn't.  
Buffy Summers."_

She set the rose down next to her words and then turned into Xander's chest, sobbing. Xander just smoothed her hair back, repeated that he loved her, and lead her away from the hole that was Sunnydale. 


End file.
